The Machine Stops | Page 3

nor night existed under the
ground--and reviewed all that had happened since she had summoned
the bed last. Ideas? Scarcely any. Events--was Kuno's invitation an

event?
By her side, on the little reading-desk, was a survival from the ages of
litter--one book. This was the Book of the Machine. In it were
instructions against every possible contingency. If she was hot or cold
or dyspeptic or at a loss for a word, she went to the book, and it told her
which button to press. The Central Committee published it. In
accordance with a growing habit, it was richly bound.
Sitting up in the bed, she took it reverently in her hands. She glanced
round the glowing room as if some one might be watching her. Then,
half ashamed, half joyful, she murmured "O Machine!" and raised the
volume to her lips. Thrice she kissed it, thrice inclined her head, thrice
she felt the delirium of acquiescence. Her ritual performed, she turned
to page 1367, which gave the times of the departure of the air-ships
from the island in the southern hemisphere, under whose soil she lived,
to the island in the northern hemisphere, whereunder lived her son.
She thought, "I have not the time."
She made the room dark and slept; she awoke and made the room light;
she ate and exchanged ideas with her friends, and listened to music and
attended lectures; she make the room dark and slept. Above her,
beneath her, and around her, the Machine hummed eternally; she did
not notice the noise, for she had been born with it in her ears. The earth,
carrying her, hummed as it sped through silence, turning her now to the
invisible sun, now to the invisible stars. She awoke and made the room
light.
"Kuno!"
"I will not talk to you." he answered, "until you come."
"Have you been on the surface of the earth since we spoke last?"
His image faded.
Again she consulted the book. She became very nervous and lay back

in her chair palpitating. Think of her as without teeth or hair. Presently
she directed the chair to the wall, and pressed an unfamiliar button. The
wall swung apart slowly. Through the opening she saw a tunnel that
curved slightly, so that its goal was not visible. Should she go to see her
son, here was the beginning of the journey.
Of course she knew all about the communication-system. There was
nothing mysterious in it. She would summon a car and it would fly with
her down the tunnel until it reached the lift that communicated with the
air-ship station: the system had been in use for many, many years, long
before the universal establishment of the Machine. And of course she
had studied the civilization that had immediately preceded her own--the
civilization that had mistaken the functions of the system, and had used
it for bringing people to things, instead of for bringing things to people.
Those funny old days, when men went for change of air instead of
changing the air in their rooms! And yet--she was frightened of the
tunnel: she had not seen it since her last child was born. It curved--but
not quite as she remembered; it was brilliant--but not quite as brilliant
as a lecturer had suggested. Vashti was seized with the terrors of direct
experience. She shrank back into the room, and the wall closed up
again.
"Kuno," she said, "I cannot come to see you. I am not well."
Immediately an enormous apparatus fell on to her out of the ceiling, a
thermometer was automatically laid upon her heart. She lay powerless.
Cool pads soothed her forehead. Kuno had telegraphed to her doctor.
So the human passions still blundered up and down in the Machine.
Vashti drank the medicine that the doctor projected into her mouth, and
the machinery retired into the ceiling. The voice of Kuno was heard
asking how she felt.
"Better." Then with irritation: "But why do you not come to me
instead?"
"Because I cannot leave this place."

"Why?"
"Because, any moment, something tremendous many happen."
"Have you been on the surface of the earth yet?"
"Not yet."
"Then what is it?"
"I will not tell you through the Machine."
She resumed her life.
But she thought of Kuno as a baby, his birth, his removal to the public
nurseries, her own visit to him there, his visits to her--visits which
stopped when the Machine had assigned him a room on the other side
of the earth. "Parents, duties of," said the book of the Machine," cease
at the moment of birth. P.422327483." True, but there was something
special about Kuno--indeed there had been something special about all
her children--and, after all, she must brave the journey if he desired it.
And "something tremendous